Abstract
Abstract The chapter summarizes the key arguments of the book, outlines its contribution, and defends its premises against criticisms. Against the criticism of ignoring human agency, I hold that social theories only offer us tools for making sense of empirical observations, rather than represent the social world “as it really is.” The notion of human agency, and ontological discussions in general, helps little in this regard. Against the inclusion of nonhuman entities like objects or concepts (Fuchs) in networks, I see the focus on social networks and on communication in them as key for the connection between relational sociology and empirical studies on social networks. Three areas for future research are: (1) the relation between informal networks and formal organization; (2) network constellations in fields of society like politics, the economy, or science; and (3) the study of social networks in processes of communication in computational social science.
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